What the Hell Would a ‘Good Will Hunting’ Series Even Be?

Monday morning saw a heap of news involving the Weinstein brothers and their former golden goose Miramax. Deadline reports that, in short, Hollywood kingpins Harvey and Bob have signed a deal that will allow them to dig up old properties and revive them in new forms. This means sequels, reboots, and reimaginings for a lot of their past Miramax hits. In ascending order of madness, we have mention of…

– Rounders 2 — a follow-up to the Matt Damon poker flick that is reaching for Robert De Niro as the central villain.– A “series transfer” for Flirting withDisaster, an early David O. Russell movie that saw Ben Stiller on a quest to find his biological parents. This could easily be transformed into an episodic comedy (though we’re not saying it should).– A Shakespeare in Love sequel, which, we guess, would involve the Bard’s continued forays with romance as he explores the creative folds of his mind.– And finally, the most bewildering announcement that the showbiz news circuit has coughed up lately, another series adaptation: this one of the movie Good Will Hunting.

…That’s pretty weird. For the three Americans who haven’t seen Good Will Hunting, it tells the story of (once again) Matt Damon, as a 20-year-old orphan, impoverished Bostonian, and all-around dillhole with a genius intellect, most notably for complex mathematics. He spends most of his time causing mayhem with fellow dillholes (of the non-genius variety) Ben Affleck, Casey Affleck, and Cole Hauser, until his mental stamina is discovered by a haughty MIT professor (Stellan Skarsgaard) who insists that his old pal (Robin Williams) refurbish the troubled young Damon’s psychological state of being so that he can put his intelligence to good use. In the end, everything works out rather neatly. The poor-but-smart Mr. Hunting finds an outlet for his talents, gets in touch with his latent childhood traumas, and even meets a nice lady in the process (Minnie Driver). The sort of self-contained story that made for the bread and butter of ’90s cinema.

So how on Earth are they going to turn this picture into a series? Some hefty bastardization is in order…

The Session-by-Session Route: Each week, we’ll examine the psychological progress achieved by young William Hunting as he undertakes regular therapy sessions with Dr. Robin Williams. I mean Sean. Kind of like The Sopranos, with a different (albeit similarly egregious) mistreatment of the letter “R”. Potential episodes: “Will Hunting’s Daddy Issues,” “Will Hunting and the Naked-in-High-School Nightmare,” “Will Hunting vs. the Rorshach.”

The On-the-Road-to-Skyler Route: At the end of the movie, we see Will take off out of Boston in the new car just bequeathed unto him by three friends who, unlike himself, actually don’t have high paying jobs lined up. Without so much as a goodbye, he zooms down the road to “see about a girl” … in other words, to reunite with Skyler, who at this point resides in California. Maybe we’ll see the sequel as a series of sorts, with Will taking on a cross country journey to make amends with his lost love, getting himself mixed up in goofy adventures along the way. Potential episodes: “Will Hunting Takes Manhattan,” “Will Hunting in the Bayou,” “Will Hunting’s Sheboygan Adventure.”

The Just-Hangin’-’round-with-Chuckie-and-the-Fellas Route: This is probably the worst idea of the bunch… and yet, so many a film and TV program has been made of it. In this incarnation, Will and his Southie pals would spend their time drinking, cursing, watching little league games, beating up other kids in the park, going down to the bowling alley. Think of it as an even more nihilistic Seinfeld, with less money and a good deal more maim. Potential episodes: “Will and Chuckie Rob the Shaw’s,” “Morgan’s Get Rich Quick Scheme,” “Cole Hauser’s Sheboygan Adventure.”

The Original Thriller-esque Route: For those of you who have read up on the story behind the production of Good Will Hunting, for whatever unfounded reason, you might know that the script was originally a thriller about G-men who pursued Will for his mathematic gift. So, maybe something like that would work as a series, and we’d see Will taking on Jason Bourne-like adventures as he avoids the long arm of the American government. Potential episodes: “Will Goes Incognito,” “Will Meets Carrie Mathison,” “Will Finally Realizes It’s Time to Serve His Country and Sells Out Entirely.”